


A Name From the Past

by Nelenus



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: F/M, Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 01:15:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17234663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nelenus/pseuds/Nelenus
Summary: Tatiana doesn't know what to think of the amnesiac foreigner that washed up on Rigel's shores. When he unexpectedly returns to her, their relationship grows... but something from his past also makes an unexpected return.





	A Name From the Past

At first, she thought nothing of it.

When he washed up on the shores of Rigel, clad in black armor and heavily wounded, the lance that lay at his side was merely the weapon he had used in whatever battle he had been fighting. However, it was heavy, and its unconscious wielder was heavier still. Tatiana left both man and lance on the shore, running back to the priory to send for help.

She returned with the priest and a stretcher. Together, they carried the wounded stranger up the hill and over to the priory’s infirmary. In her haste to see the man treated, Tatiana forgot all about the lance.

To treat the stranger’s wounds, Tatiana and the other clerics had to strip him of his armor. While Tatiana prepared a concoction of medicinal syrup and cast some healing magic, the clerics quietly hid the armor in a box, which was then stored in the corner. At some point, someone returned to the beach and picked up the lance. It ended up in the corner along with the rest of the stranger’s possessions.

Tatiana spent the next few days nursing the stranger back to health. Unfortunately, her conversations with him during this time were no help in discovering his identity – he had lost his memory. He was just as puzzled as anyone else at the priory.

“Are you saying… you can’t remember your own name?” Tatiana asked.

The stranger stared long and hard at the foot of his bed. His expression grew progressively more troubled at his inability to recall so much as a name. He gave up and shook his head.

“No…” he said. “I have no memory of who I am.”

“Well…” Tatiana set the linens down on the edge of the bed, suddenly feeling awkward. “We can’t just call you nothing.”

He did not respond.

“If you can’t remember, then perhaps you could, uh… come up with something? What would you like to be called?” Tatiana said.

“You want me to invent a name?” the stranger said.

“I mean -” Tatiana shifted on her feet, glancing wildly about the room. “At least, until your memory comes back?”

“All right. I’ll try to think of something.”

With that, Tatiana went back to her work of sorting and folding the linens. When that was done, she went out to perform some other chores, including a visit to the village for supplies. She was out for half the day.

When she returned, the stranger was gone.

Perplexed, Tatiana immediately set her satchel on the floor by the stranger’s bed and went looking for him. Instead of finding him, however, she kept bumping into other clerics who lived at the priory. She flagged one of them down.

“Excuse me,” Tatiana said. “Have you seen the man we’ve been treating in the infirmary?”

The cleric’s initial reaction was to give Tatiana a bemused stare, as if she had grown a second head. She quickly dropped the expression as the realization hit her.

“Oh, I suppose you wouldn’t have seen them; you were in the village all day…”

“Seen who?”

“General Jerome and his men,” the cleric replied. “There’s been rumors flying that a foreigner washed up on our shores a few days ago. I guess Jerome found out that he was being kept here.”

“You’re saying Jerome took him?”

The cleric nodded. “I overheard him as he was leaving. The man’s being taken away for questioning. All his equipment’s been confiscated, too.”

Tatiana’s eyebrows shot up, but she made no reply. If Jerome had taken the stranger away, then there wasn’t much she could do. No doubt Jerome thought he was a spy, or something worse. After the ‘questioning’, the stranger would be lucky if he were simply locked in prison. It was something Tatiana didn’t want to even think about. She and the cleric quietly went back to their duties.

Before resuming her chores, Tatiana made a quick stop by the infirmary to grab her satchel. It still lay on the floor by the now empty bed near the corner. She hurried in and grabbed the satchel. As she stood back up, she balked, staring at the empty bed for a minute.

She had known him for less than a week. And in that time, she never even learned his name.

Why then, did she suddenly feel a longing for him, now that he was gone?

Tatiana shook her head vigorously, as if to shake the thoughts out of her head. Slinging the satchel over her shoulder, she left as quickly as she came in.

She passed by the empty box that used to contain the stranger’s possessions. His armor, accoutrements, and lance – all gone.

Once again, she thought nothing of it.

A few weeks passed. At first, Tatiana had thought that with enough time, she would have forgotten. But the mysterious, amnesiac stranger’s face remained burned into her memory, even weeks later. She couldn’t help but continue to wonder what had become of him.

She received quite the shock when, on another trip to the village, that question was finally answered.

With her errands done for the day, Tatiana was just about to start heading back to the priory. The sound of a familiar voice caught her ear, and she stopped short.

“Who is that…?” she wondered aloud. “I’ve heard that voice before…”

She rounded the corner of a house, looking for the owner of the voice. What she saw made her heart skip a beat.

It was the stranger.

However, there was something different about him. His complexion looked much healthier than last time, and showed no obvious signs of the injuries he’d had back on the beach. Now he stood tall and proud, decked out in general’s garb.

Tatiana furrowed her brow, puzzled. He was a Rigelian general?

He appeared to be in the middle of a conversation with some of the villagers. Whatever they were talking about, their conversation ended within moments of Tatiana seeing them. The villagers left, but the stranger lingered for a bit. Gathering her courage, Tatiana approached him.

“It’s you…” she breathed.

The stranger looked puzzled.

“Me…?” He furrowed his brow, thinking. Seconds later, the realization hit him.

“Wait, I know you,” he said. “You’re the woman who found me on the beach…”

“Yes.”

Tatiana tried and failed to hold back a smile. Strangely, she also noticed her heart beating faster. She clasped her hands behind her back, trying to hide her nervousness.

“Forgive me,” the stranger said. “I never got the chance to properly thank you.”

“It’s all right,” Tatiana replied. “But could you tell me… did you ever remember your name?”

His face fell.

“I…”

“You still don’t remember?”

“I don’t. But I have since adopted a new name. Call me Ezekiel.”

“Ezekiel…” Tatiana said it slowly, as if testing the name.

“And, I fear I have forgotten this as well… but what is your name?”

“Tatiana.”

“Ah,” Ezekiel nodded thoughtfully. “Thank you, Tatiana.”

With that, he turned to go. Reaching for his lance – which he had leaning on the wall of the house next to him – he waved farewell to Tatiana and went inside the house.

For about a minute, Tatiana did not move. As she then turned to leave, something belatedly occurred to her. The lance Ezekiel had with him was also different. His own lance seemed to be gone, along with his armor.

Tatiana shrugged. Jerome probably confiscated it all when Ezekiel was arrested. Why he never reclaimed them was a mystery, but it meant nothing to her. By the time she returned to the priory, the lance was completely forgotten.

 

In the weeks following her encounter with General Ezekiel in the village, the two ran into each other again. And again. Gradually, Tatiana started to learn more about this mysterious man.

He continued to insist he had no memory prior to washing up on Valentian shores. All he knew was that he was not originally from Valentia. That made things all the more puzzling when he told Tatiana that Emperor Rudolf himself had taken him in and given him his position as general. Currently, he was assigned as General Jerome’s second in command, stationed within a few miles of the village and priory where Tatiana lived.

It explained why Tatiana kept seeing him in the village. And since it seemed his new station was now permanent, the two saw each other increasingly often.

Over time, Ezekiel felt less and less like a mysterious foreigner. Their relationship grew, and it was barely a fortnight before Tatiana was in love.

As far as she could tell, he still had no memory of his past life. Or if he had started to remember, he never told her.

At least, not until something from his past made an unexpected reappearance.

Something they had both forgotten about.

 

The tides of war started to turn against Rigel when the Deliverance crossed the border. However, when Sir Alm, the Deliverance leader, rescued Tatiana from Nuibaba, she and Zeke both ultimately joined the Deliverance’s cause. They both knew that meant betraying Rigel and their emperor, but Tatiana at least had made her choice with something other than national loyalty in mind.

She knew she needed to save Zeke. She knew the Deliverance’s next objective was the outpost where he and Jerome were stationed. Being rescued from Nuibaba’s clutches would mean nothing if her own rescuers turned their blades on Zeke.

Fortunately, she had nothing to worry about. Alm secretly sent a missive to Zeke informing him about Tatiana, granting him the opportunity to turn on Jerome and aid the Deliverance. Jerome’s force was swiftly defeated, and after a conversation with Alm back at the village, Zeke joined Tatiana in the Deliverance ranks. From there on out, they would fight together.

They even joined Alm in the descent into the Temple of Duma. But it was in the Temple that Zeke’s past suddenly came for him.

While exploring the Temple, Alm stopped to investigate a tiny, remote chamber. He came back out with a lance in hand.

“Look at this,” Alm said. “This is quite the lance…”

Zeke was the first to go over and look. Out of curiosity, Tatiana glanced at it as well. She frowned. This lance was familiar somehow.

“Uh, General Ezekiel?” Alm asked. “Is something wrong?”

“No… I’m fine,” Zeke said. He reached for the lance. “But this lance looks familiar…”

“Oh. In that case…”

Alm handed the lance over. Zeke held the lance steady in his hand for a moment, feeling its weight. He felt along its ebony grip, inspected its blade. All the while, he wore a contemplative – and slightly troubled – expression. As he held it, he muttered something. A single word, under his breath.

Even if Alm and the others did not notice, Tatiana certainly did. Something about the sight of the lance was bothering him. The gears in her own head turned as well, and a realization struck her.

This was the lance he had wielded before. The lance he’d had with him when he washed up on the shore all those months ago.

Zeke’s expression grew distant. However, Alm had already started to move on. The group began to move, and Tatiana had to prod Zeke on the shoulder to bring him back to reality and catch up to the others.

“Zeke?” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“It’s nothing,” Zeke insisted.

Tatiana knew better, but this was hardly the time to stop and pry. She merely nodded and continued on following Sir Alm through the Temple. There would be time to talk to Zeke later, in private.

In the meantime, a growing sense of anxiety gnawed at her. What if seeing his old lance had triggered past memories? What if he started to remember his past life? Did that include another family?

Or another lover?

She nearly choked at the thought. It would only be right for him to return to her, but Tatiana still couldn’t stand the thought of it.

She had already prayed to the Mother countless times. Prayed that Zeke would never regain his memory. It was selfish, and she knew it. Guilt began to mesh in with the anxiety.

Tatiana slowed her pace, walking with her head lowered. Perhaps this was her rightful punishment. No matter how much she might wish for him to stay, he had another life. It wouldn’t be right for her to keep him away from it.

But what about her?

“ _Please, Mother,”_ she prayed under her breath. “ _Hear me one more time. I know it’s selfish, but… I_ love _him. Let him stay…”_

The touch of a hand on her shoulder jolted her back to reality. She gasped, turning to face whoever touched her.

It was Zeke.

“Oh!” she said. “Zeke! I…”

“Tatiana…” Zeke said. His brow was furrowed with worry.

Tatiana halted, belatedly realizing that everyone else had stopped too. Apparently, while she had been distracted, Alm had called a halt. Everyone now took the opportunity to rest for a moment and prepare for the final battle.

A set of imposing double doors stood in front of them. While Alm and Celica went to investigate the doors, Tatiana hung back. Zeke beckoned her over, and the two sat down by the wall, a short distance from the rest of the group.

“What is it?” Tatiana asked.

Zeke let out a heavy sigh. He set the lance on the ground, looking pointedly at it.

Tatiana swallowed. Of course Zeke had noticed her distress. And they both knew it was because of that lance. The lance that neither of them thought he would ever see again.

“I knew this was bothering you for a while,” he said.

“Zeke -”

“Not this,” he interrupted, picking up the lance. “My memory.”

Tatiana’s shoulders slumped. When she didn’t answer right away, Zeke continued.

“You’ve been wondering if I’ll ever remember my past,” he said. “And… for the longest time, I thought I would never remember. But now…”

He set the lance down again. Tatiana’s heart dropped into her stomach. He did remember.

Zeke gently placed a finger under her chin, lifting her face until their gazes met. His other hand rested on top of hers.

“Tatiana… please don’t let this upset you,” he said. “Just let me explain.”

“All right.”

He took a deep breath to steel himself.

“You know this is the lance I had with me when you found me on the beach,” he began. He glanced down at it. “I recognized it even before Sir Alm gave it to me. And when I held it, I felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. But even so, I cannot remember where I was wielding it.”

He lowered his hand.

“But then… what do you remember?” Tatiana asked.

“I can only remember a name,” he replied. “When I took it, its name returned to me instantly. It was like recalling the name of a long-lost friend… and yet not knowing why I knew them…”

“A name?”

“Yes. Its name… is Gradivus.”

“Gradivus…”

The name meant nothing to her. Certainly there was no weapon in Valentia known by that name. But that was hardly surprising. No one – not even Zeke himself – knew where he was from.

Wherever he _was_ from, however, that name surely meant a great deal. It was masterfully made, and the intricate designs on the blade and handle seemed to speak of high standing. No doubt it was the lance of a celebrated warrior, or the regalia of a noble – or even royal – house.

Despite Zeke’s reassurance that that was the only thing he remembered, it did nothing to quell her anxiety. This was probably just the beginning. If he could remember the lance’s name, more of his memory of it was sure to follow. Memories of other parts of his life would follow that. It was only a matter of time before all of his memory returned.

All her prayers would be in vain. Surely this was punishment for her selfishness.

Tatiana turned away, but not in time. Zeke placed a hand on her shoulder, turning her back to face him.

“This changes nothing,” he said resolutely. “I still cannot remember my past. And even if I did… I would never leave you.”

“Are you sure?” Tatiana asked. Her hands began to shake. “What if there’s someone -”

“Don’t.”

Zeke took both her hands in his. He looked her directly in the eye.

“Don’t do this to yourself,” he said. “Don’t fret over what my past might have been like. Cherish what we have _now._ ”

“I… of course…” Her voice started to shake as she fought back tears. “I’m sorry, Zeke.”

“It’s all right.”

He let go of her hands and reached for her face. He gently stroked her cheek. Meanwhile, Tatiana successfully blinked back her tears. She leaned forward, allowing Zeke to put his arms around her. For a minute, neither of them said a word while they sat in the other’s embrace.

“The final battle will be starting soon…” Tatiana whispered.

“I know.”

Still, they did not move.

Only when they heard Alm give the command did they rise to their feet with everyone else. Zeke took up Gradivus and jumped back into the saddle. Tatiana grabbed her staff.

The giant double doors swung wide open. Gradually, everyone made their way inside, to the Altar.

“Tatiana,” Zeke said. “No matter what happens… I will not leave your side.”

“I know. And I will always stay by you, my love…”

With that, they headed inside.

No matter what they faced, they would stay together. And even when Zeke’s past did come back for him, he still chose to stay with Tatiana in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> My prompt was pretty much anything Zeke/Tatiana related, so I took the opportunity to explore a headcanon I've had since the first time I played Echoes, which is: why Gradivus is even in the game. I could attempt to justify why it ended up where it did (confiscated, then placed in the Temple where he couldn't find it), while also using an opportunity for some light angst, since finding Gradivus again would probably be the trigger that makes Zeke eventually regain his memories.


End file.
